Ténéré (1988)
by Paco Rabanne

I agree 100% with JaimeB's review. I too truly enjoyed this fragrance because it was so unique and very pleasant to the senses. No matter where I would be people of all ages would comment on how nice I smelled. Sad that it was discontinued because this was a true "fragrance masterpiece". Very unusual but in a nice way. Paco Rabanne should have discontinued XS for Men (which to me is horrible) instead of Tenere. Sometimes companies make mistakes they "perhaps" realize later on. In my mind I can still smell this wonderful fragrance and I really wish I could buy it again !!

I purchased this fragrance blindly after reading the reviews on this page, and I have to admit that I absolutely adore it!

Applied to my skin, the most prominent notes seem to be honey, rose and leather, with the other scents remaining in the background but adding to the overall effect.
It's an absolute delicious fragrance, and even though floral notes usually are more connected to female perfumes, this one manages to be a 'manly' one, methinks.
I detect a certain kind of solitude and loneliness within its composition: it somehow feels as if the setting sun on a melancholic evening has been condensed into a bottle of liquid.

IMHO it is a shame that this fragrance has been discontinued!

Ténéré was one of those odd birds: a green floral scent marketed to men. Like the Carolina parakeet and the passenger pigeon, Ténéré is long extinct. For a sense of just how fragile such a species is, consider that even in the more forgiving niche fragrance environment Ténéré’s close cousin Virgilio was discontinued. Under the commercial pressure of the mass market, Ténéré never had a chance.

In character, Ténéré stands somewhere between Virgilio and the reissued Givenchy Insensé. It’s darker, sweeter, and more overtly floral than the former, but more green and astringent than the latter. Ténéré starts out with an original and intoxicating accord of galbanum and bergamot before it settles into its bittersweet heart. Dry floral note, crisp herbs, and dusty aromatics are set against a honeyed background in a manner that’s at once ideally balanced and fraught with tension. The animalic honey and indolic jasmine components in the central accord add much appreciated warmth to what could otherwise have been an overly cold and aloof scent. Some may find these notes disturbingly “urinous” in combination, but to me they read as animal comfort.

The drydown, when it arrives, is sweet, spicy, and balsamic in a surprisingly oriental vein. This transformation is itself enough to make Ténéré interesting, but that it occurs within a scent of rare and idiosyncratic character makes Ténéré’s demise all the more regrettable.

Initial blast is reminiscent of the Leonards ( Homme & Monsieur) to me. Not exactly like them, but enough to jog my memory of the blast I receive from them both . That's what I get the first 2-3 minutes and I'm grateful the lavender subsides some.

This is gritty and green and winds into a stream of licorice tinged florals. The rose weaves in and out and the licorice(anise & tarragon) aroma keeps the beat. Once the basenotes appear, that's when I like this juice. Before this point, it's a bit busy for me, but not bad. To my nose it's a tad convoluted, but well done considering all the ingredients.

Not something I'd wear on a regular basis, but definitely something I like visiting with.

If you gentlemen have not tried La Nuit, the sister fragrance to Tenere, you must. Released by Rabanne 3 years earlier, in 1985, it was as trendsetting for its animalic-rose-leather as Tenere is for its unabashedly floral heart. They are masculine and feminine mirror images of each other, but neither too far down the end of the spectrum. I wear both La Nuit, dark for a woman's frag, and Tenere, warm and floral for a masculine, and enjoy them equally.

A sand desert in the Sahara (an erg, or 'sea of dunes') stretching from NE Niger into W Chad lends an unlikely name to a mostly floral scent by Paco Rabanne from 1988. Citrus, cassia bark, lavender. rosemary, and other green notes lead off into a heart of florals (carnation, jasmine, lily of the valley, and iris) and green and sweet spicy notes (anise, artemisia, tarragon, and cinnamon) on an amber-leather base (amber, cedar, leather, musk, patchouli, and vetiver). The overall impression is not only green-floral, but also warm and spicy with a touch of animal sweetness. (Oh, didn't I mention honey?) This is a scent that has cruelly been discontinued. I guess at some point, someone decided that guys didn't want to smell so flowery. Hah! What did they know? This is unique, beautiful, even daring — a creation for men not ashamed to be noticed and admired, even for a certain flamboyant style.